The quarantine imposed on an area in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which was
hit by an outbreak of bird flu last month, has been lifted, local
authorities announced on Wednesday.
A ceremony was held to mark the lifting of the quarantine in
Jiuyuan District of Baotou city on Wednesday morning.
Experts with the regional headquarters for the prevention of
major animal-related epidemics said that no new outbreak of bird
flu had been reported since the last poultry was culled 21 days
ago.
Nearly 1,000 chickens and ducks were reported to have died
suddenly on a poultry farm in Xincheng Village of Jiuyuan District
in Baotou City on September 27. The national avian influenza
laboratory later confirmed that the H5N1 virus was found in samples
of the dead poultry. About 30,000 fowls within three kilometers of
the farm were subsequently slaughtered. No human infections were
found.
A total of 42.6 million domestic fowls in the Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region have received compulsory inoculations.
"The inoculation rate has reached 100 percent in the autonomous
region," said the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region Bird Flu
Control Headquarters Office.
Three million domestic fowls in Baotou had been inoculated by
October 11. Poultry and egg products from the bird flu-stricken
areas were not put on sale.
Two outbreaks of bird flu have been reported last month, which
killed around 2,000 domestic poultry in the Inner Mongolia and Ningxia Hui autonomous regions.
(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2006)